[Lynne Gravier, 77], known to almost everyone as the "Bear Woman," has been feeding bruins and other animals for decades, but nobody realized the extent of her devotion until neighbors began complaining. Last Aug. 24, seven fish and game wardens raided Gravier's home. They stumbled on what was essentially an animal hippie commune and shack-out pad.

In all 15 loafing black bears hung out with Gravier inside the house and on her deck, and lumbered around the compound like kings at a feast. Gravier named her oafish friends things like Smiley, Goofy, Connie, Biggie and Wombat. She admitted setting up a kiddie pool for wallowing. She fixed peanut butter sandwiches for her guests, sometimes mixing in glucosamine to ease the arthritis pain in older bears.

Some 6,000 pounds of rolled and cracked corn was delivered every month from a ranch supply house. Gravier stored the food in a 40-foot-long shipping container that she used as an ursine food dispensary.

Knight-errantry was not in evidence among the hulking chowhounds, who turned Gravier's home into a reeking outhouse. The cabin-style home was piled high with filth by the time of the raid and immediately condemned by county authorities.

Gravier also fed 18 cats, three dogs, 40 peacocks and a steady stream of visiting turkeys and deer.

And yet it took decades for the neighbors to begin complaining? And then, in the end, she gets no real punishment, after animal lovers protest the prosecution on behalf of the well-meaning lady. According to the neighbors, her loving ministrations were turning bears into problem bears that break into houses, chase sheep, and end up needing to get killed.

Bothersome bears are a particularly volatile issue in this cattle- and pot-growing town of 1,300 near the South Fork of the Eel River, in the heart of redwood country.

Pot-growing, eh? Seems like you can get away with breaking all kinds of laws these days... at least if your criminality has enough of a hippie vibe.

Some serious scratch was needed to pull off that feeding and hording operation. Was she independently wealthy or growing dope herself? Usually it is dogs and cats. Credit for this woman going the extra step with the bears. Of course, the expected outcome of this story would have been her killed and eaten in her home.

The problem now is how to you get those habituated bears back to eatting berries and nettles after being fed like that so long?

Pot-growing, eh? Seems like you can get away with breaking all kinds of laws these days... at least if your criminality has enough of a hippie vibe.

I know the area well - played there many times - and, yes. It's the kind of place where everyone grows pot - everyone - school teachers, cops, everybody. There's so much illegal money the biggest problem most people have, even little kids, is breaking a $20.

If the word hadn't got out I was a Republican, I could've turned my life around up there years ago,...

I keep telling people that black bears aren't particularly dangerous - at least not the sort we get in central Pennsylvania. But deliberately feeding them on an industrial scale, and snuggling up to them like that day in, day out?

Personally, I find it heartening that there ARE still places where people don't call the cops on their neighbors for having a few brown spots on their lawns.

And YET, sanity REQUIRES we call the cops, in this case.1) She has dozens of BEARS, roaming on her property, and being bears they probably don’t just roam HER property but her neighbors as well. You know, BEARS, large Omnivorous animals, not opposed to snacking your dog, your child, or YOU!2) Large, Federally PROTECTED animals. You can’t just shoot the little darlings if they wander onto your property!3) In sum large, dangerous, PROTECTED animals are being sheltered by your neighbor, who else do you call BUT the “cops?”And, were I an Animal Welfare sort, I’d want her in jail. She has done the bears no favours. As someone upthread pointed out, now we have to get the bears back into the wild and acclimated to living, like bears. And if they can’t acclimate they STARVE, and if they WON’T acclimate we will have to euthanize them. How has this “Do-Gooder” done any “good?” And why wouldn’t the neighbors call the cops?

She has done the bears no favours. As someone upthread pointed out, now we have to get the bears back into the wild and acclimated to living, like bears. And if they can’t acclimate they STARVE, and if they WON’T acclimate we will have to euthanize them.

The dope growers bring diesel spills, house fires, machine guns and thieves. They don't pay taxes, employee withholding, business licenses, or conform to any rules, regulations or laws that any other people have to follow.

They rent a house, cut up the walls and floors, overload the electrical circuits, fill it up with dirt and mold and eventually it catches fire - they face no consequences and the homeowner is left with astronomical expenses to repair the damage.

That is the unintended consequence of "compassionate use."

I'll take the bear lady as a neighbor any day over those worthless culls.

Huckleberry Finn has to escape a really crazy, drunken father. (At the end of Tom Sawyer ... because of the gold coins in the cave. Huck Finn starts off rich. And, the judge takes the money to invest (honestly). And, the widow take Huck home. Where he is civilized.

But he runs away. (Or I should say, swims away. It's a long story.)

And, in it, he's locked on an island. In primitive conditions. So the story's adventures tell you what it's like to live with no humanity around.

When Huck casts off (in a canoe) ... he raids the shed. Where his dad had brought him. And, he had unloaded "vittles.")

A 50 bound sack of cornmeal was part of those vittles.

Here? A woman who cared for bears, wasn't eaten alive by bears.

But by her neighbors.

So much civilization is what Huck Finn ran from. It is too much to bare. So said Mark Twain.

Black bears are not federally protected (unless of course they are in some national park). Most states have hunting seasons unless the numbers are way low.

And pretty much everywhere, if perosns, pets/livestock or property are legitimately threatened, you can shoot a black bear out of season on your own property. That does not mean blasting away if the bear is shaking the bird feeder or digging in the trash. A little common sense is necessary in bear country.

A friend of my, who was in his 40's when I was 22, told me he had served with General Chennault. During WW2. Detailed to China. To run supplies. He said flying in the first thing that hit your nostrils was the smells of human excrement.

Then? He said it the whole country was controlled by war lords. And, the "supplies" would be endlessly stolen.

He also said that the "night soil" ... the trenched the soldiers had dug out to shit into. Were cleaned each and every morning my Chinese people. Who took the night soil out with their hands. It was their fertilizer.

Getting supplies through ... as deemed necessary by Chennault; involved going into territory controlled by war lords. Who'd easily kill the Americans for what was in the trucks. Dead bodies didn't need no trucks to get on home, either.

That was back in 1943.

The world's changed very, very much.

But before we got Mr. Crapper. And, the flush toilet ... everybody dealt with buckets of poo.

That's why it was said it was dangerous to walk city streets in the morning. The tenants just tossed their poo buckets out the window. Where it was supposed to merge with the open sewer lines.

Women's clothes covered them from head to foot for a reason. Not necessarily religiously dictated.

The invention of the printing press made for the arrival of life's biggest treats. And, thoughts were written down with quill pens. Putting to use everything from last night's dinner bird.

I said I listen to books on tape while I drive. That means I don't listen to the radio. (And, I don't listen to music.)

Here, I read, too. My myopic eyes love to read.

I can also write.

And, ya know, when I go out to dinner, alone, I take my bookstand. And, I read. Because I only choose restaurants with good light. Whatever I'm reading is carried into the restaurant in my pocketbook. The arrangement is fine. The book is there right above my plate. (And, I don't have to clean up after dinner. Which I consider a double-bonus-point.)

You just like to say "you lie" ... like a bully on the playground. For you it's sport. For me? It makes me giggle.

HA. HA. SCHLEPP!

This is a playground joke. Told to me back in the 1960's. She was teaching Puerto Rican kids. They couldn't catch onto English. They preferred to chatter in Spanish.

She was assigned to "playground duty." When she overheard two kids. One pulling at her friend's arm and pointing to another kid nearby. "Mira, Mira, schlepp!"

You know teachers come back with their experiences, and they tell funny stories. I remembered this one.

Black bears are not federally protected (unless of course they are in some national park). Most states have hunting seasons unless the numbers are way lowMy bad, I thought they were…STILL< taking one “out of season” is problematic, and in fact, will REQUIRE official sanction.

Would you mind? If you do, why don't you keep your fucking dog on your own property and let it shit and piss there? This is something I never understood. I would never want my animals or my kids fouling other people's labors. One day we'll look back at this whole practice and wonder how we could ever be so thoughtless and self-serving.

I have a friend who lives basically "next door" to this woman. Take a look using Google Earth of the area East of Laytonville going toward Spyrock (or Spy Rock). It is very rugged, dirt roads, wooded with oaks. It is quite likely that her house is completely invisible to her neighbors and from the road (such as it is a road). The reason her neighbors didn't complain earlier is probably because they didn't know.

My guess is that it took someone like the driver delivering the feed to say something to someone while having lunch at Boomers.

Those people up there mind their own business and generally don't go traipsing into their neighbors' property. Most of the homes up there are behind locked gates on private dirt roads well off the county maintained road. It is very easy to do pretty much anything you want (except grow a lot of non-permitted pot, they check for that by helicopter) without anyone really knowing about it.

Traditional Guy, I don't think you could do this while married ... unless you're mmarried to a woman who also loves to read. But if you go to Amazon. And, plug in "book stands" ... you get these choices!

I've got a book stand so light it collapses into a pencil case.

Yeah. Sometimes, I get foods that spritz towards the book. But most times, alas, they land on clothes. So I carry (believe it or not), something called "Gonzo-Take-Me-Along.) A spritz has saved many an item.

I must have! Ben Franklin was in Paris. And, was at Voltaire's bedside when he came back to Paris, just before Voltaire died.

Again, our memories can be false collectors of what we once read. Mark Twain says ... our recalls are so faulty ... we can never be telling the truth.

Jefferson was young. And, also in Paris. He took Sally Hemmings with him. He bought her fine gloves. And, in Paris she wasn't a slave. She was free! But only if she stayed in Paris. Instead, she followed Thomas home.

You know, I don't think Woodstock was in Woodstock. I think the grounds were built on Max Yasgur's farm? (Sp?) How should I know? All I remember was the rains that came ... We drove up early. And, got to park "in the back." Then, when I put my naked foot down on the ground ... as I exited the GTO ... (which had its top up). My foot went ankle deep into the manure.

Tires were supposed to spread it. But you couldn't reach this part of the farm ... once the rains came down.

Once one foot goes deep into manure ... you learn what it's like to walk through such a field. And, yes. You do. But you leave the shoes in the car.

I used to listen to books on cassette. (my car's old enough it still has this part.) But I've switched to CD's. (And, Amazon no longer offers this ... unless I really hunt.)

I thought you needed an "MP3" to download ... And, then gimmicky stuff. Where you stuck wires into holes on your dashboard.

Don't know, though.

Whahoo! Glad to see people listening as well as reading!

Great to see a "Down and Out" about Disney! That myth's spreading about Main Street ... is the worst! But it makes money like nobody's business! That's why corporations go into "Disney mode."

You make money when you attract customers.

In my yoot, that's why my parents decorated their store's front windows. I loved that part of the business! The dummies had arms you could take off. And, you put a shirt onto a dummy. Buttoned it up. And, slipped the fake arms inside. To a kid the dummies looked like large dolls!)

Oh, boy. You could walk down 5th Avenue before Christmas ... and those stores front windows were schmaltz to the eyeballs!

Love and loneliness are an old person's poverty. When they have means and initiative, they will effuse with the one to sublimate the other. Who can condemn a woman and her love, or an animal and theirs? It is love that is on trial here, hers and theirs. But love is never wrong, never guilty. She couldn't clean up, age and infirmity take their toll, but she could love and be loved. And neighbors and state have their justifiable frames of reference. The tragic element of life is omnipresent until the end of time. No one condemns the old woman's love for animals or theirs for her. It is a tender moment in time and not so unusual a one, as experienced livers know. The weather in Mendocino is heavenly, the sea air and grasses intoxicating. The trees and shrubs and sands seeming eternal. The winds purifying.

I have an MP3 player NOT and I-Pod, that I bought at Best Buy 3 years ago.

I download the book files, 1 mp3 file per chapter, to my desktop or laptop.

I connect the player to the computer as a mass storage device (like a thumb drive) then drag and drop them into a directory on the player I named "Books"

In your case, download the book files to your computer, then use Windows Media Player or another program to burn them as audio files to CDs.

Or, if your car player will paly MP3 files off a CD, burn them as MP3 files.

You can download the audio books from Librivox as a single zip file but it has a 64K bitrate. I usually download the individual chapter files which have a 128K bitrate. Better sounding, though that is not a big issue with spoken word.

E-mail me at johnhenry@changeover.com if you have any questions or problems.